salvation

Warning: this is a very polemical post. Stop reading now if you still want to like me to some extent.

In seminary I encountered two gods, and each member of the faculty worshiped one of them.

One is radically open and immanent, the other sovereign and transcendent (while also being sufficiently immanent).
The irony is that both gods are ‘useless’ to us. The first is useless because it provides us with nothing but a way deeper into the morass of our own broken lament and the chaos of the created world. The second God is useless because we can’t make that God do anything for us; the second God acts in radical freedom to save us. And yet only the second God can save us. The first god will only prove to be an idol of our construction, betraying us until the end. The first god is able to empathize with us because it is us, but is powerless to confront evil, because it is only us and/or structures and being of the universe. The second God is able to empathize with us because he defines and even is our humanity in Jesus Christ, and is powerful enough to confront evil because he also isnot us.

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Hi! I'm Steven. I'm the pastor of Lakeview Community Church in Rochester, NY.